


Et in Arcadia ego

by EldritchChoir



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, angbang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:52:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14250522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchChoir/pseuds/EldritchChoir
Summary: Apocrypha describing the union between Melkor and Mairon.





	1. I. Blade

Now Mairon was uniquely talented among the Maiar of Aulё. He was a sharp mind, ever-fixated on the forging of tools, and crafting such to ease and expediate the daily lives of his fellow Maiar. In the beginning, this was his sole motivation and ambition. His efforts resulted in mounting successes, giving shape to more and more complex mechanisms. Scales, locks, and clocks were all among his creations. Thus, his canny touch was the pride of Aulё and he delighted in his master’s praise. Being set apart was not his original intention, as he was first and foremost an individual whose keen thoughts enjoyed a puzzle, and an elegant solution. But adoration gave him a new sort of thrill, while it simultaneously alienated him from the other apprentices. In a secret place in his heart, he imagined himself at Aulё’s side as an equal. As something more, perhaps. The details of this, Mairon did not know how to articulate. It was an ember of want, leaving an aching burn on his heart. Internally, he berated himself for allowing his ambition to be tainted by this selfish desire.

In time, Mairon found himself harboring a general dislike of Yavanna. He knew that his strange feelings for his master and this were perhaps related, but he was too prideful to contemplate further implications. In his reasoning, it was because Yavanna herself was too prideful. She seemed to work her talent of giving life with a grandiose pretense, fervently inviting others to bask in the wonder she had wrought. Mairon knew that this was not uncalled for. She was a truly unique entity in those early days, and her elegant seeming in her works, fashioning things that held an air of perfect order, like they had always existed, was difficult to replicate. In counsel with Aulё, Mairon voiced his insecurity over his observations. Aulё merely admonished him and said that it was not his place to worry. But Mairon felt it was maybe a matter of his basic nature—that he would never have the power of the Valar. He vowed that with his talents, he would forge something with which to truly express his cunning.

Inspiration came to Mairon one day while he was observing the labor of several of Yavanna’s own Maiar. They worked in a studio together, weaving fabric, and fashioning garments from the yardage. Yavanna gave them wool, flax, cotton, silk, and all manner of other materials to imagine with. It was a fascinating, and detail-oriented process, and Mairon sat for hours by a wall, silently taking it in. A gleaming of a pair of shears caught his eye. Here was a tool that could shape and create, while simultaneously destroying something that was once a whole. Destruction was such a bewildering concept, in Mairon’s naïve world. He decided then and there that he would perfect the blade, in a way that he had never seen before.

His struggle after this pursuit was a lengthy one. Mairon’s time was full of nothing but the fire of the forge then, and he did not miss the outside world, so involved was he in the making. The blade he was crafting he saw much of himself in. The multitudes of folds of steel for strength, imitating the layers of strength within him, that Aulё made him see and learn to value. Perhaps these details were too minute for the untrained eye to appreciate, but Mairon understood. He and this blade were the same language, and he loved it unlike everything else his hands had wrought before. It was not presented to Aule for inspection until it was perfect, with a shine Mairon liked to compare to the lamp Illuin.

Aulё’s reaction was that of dismay-- something Mairon could have never predicted. Aulё held the blade aloft as if it were a temperamental serpent, but all the venom came from him as he berated his apprentice.

“Why would you bring such a fell thing into our realm? The Children will have no need of this. Not in the home we are fashioning for them. If you are a true servant of peace, with intentions akin to mine, you will understand why we must destroy this wicked instrument. This object, which has a sole purpose of violence.” Aulё pronounced. Mairon felt an intense chagrin, as he watched his master return his creation into the fire in which it was born and fed the flames into an inferno with his will. When there was nothing left of Mairon’s blade, Aulё disappeared, leaving the Maia to his depressed posture, furled in upon himself in the corner of the forge.

Mairon remained there until the light of the fire dimmed and died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. This is something a bit different from my usual. Since the writing in this is a bit denser than what I normally do, I'm testing out this short chapter format. I think it's better because I have a lot to say, and it's easier to understand in short bursts and doesn't need any transitional filler in between.
> 
> Anyway, this ship is my life now. I hope you like my headcanons...?


	2. II. Whispers

“You are wiser than the rest of your ilk, bright one.”

The voice was but a whisper, and unfamiliar to Mairon. It lingered close, like a damp cloth, but felt of uncrossable distance, untenable. Mairon scrambled up from his place on the ashy floor but saw no one. He gestured to relight the fire.

“Wait. If we are to converse, it must remain dark. You understand it is my nature, and therefore the only conditions under which I may influence the home of the happy Valar.” The voice was full of condescension, and a hint of humor. Mairon staid his hand, still wondering at the darkness. However, he knew now to whom these words belonged to. A figure that until now only existed at the periphery of his consciousness.

“Why do you approach me, Melkor? You are surely aware that I am no friend of yours. I hold no admiration for your course, nor are my intentions akin to yours. My wants are that of the Valar, and I craft nothing that doesn’t hope for a prosperous future.” Mairon’s answer was weary, though still, his curiosity burned deep within.

“Yet, in your endeavors, you have also pleased me. I have seen you inquisit the meaning of destruction. It is the antithesis of your cause, but even so, you have dug your hands in deep. Perhaps you have also realized that destruction is a form of creation. The Valar would not have you believe this, but I walked the same path and asked the same questions, before our lord Eru even thought of you.” Melkor’s voice had the disorienting quality of being ever behind Mairon, regardless of where he turned his head. He backed up against a wall, and still it echoed forth, as if coming from behind the stone.

“But you must believe me, it was not my intention. I don’t understand myself to be like you.” Mairon lamented, an existential panic welling up within him. He always did envision himself as different. Better, somehow, than the other Maiar. Ever wanting to be admirable, and of use, but with the will to fuel his ambition.

“I suspect you understand very little of me, then. That is no surprise. You would be led to believe that I am usurper of this paradise that is Eä. But my true designs are not understood, nor given a chance to flourish. I have spent much time contemplating the Void, and in its infinite expanse I was led to see in full-- that all things are composed of opposite aspects. The Valar do not comprehend that without myself and my efforts, this world they are weaving would be nothing but a thin façade. There would be no legitimate depth to the passion the Children are to bring, for there would be no meaning in success, nor fear of the opposite. Balance, bright one. That is what I have to offer, and why I am necessary. Not only that, but I also represent the freedom to explore these concepts, to your mind’s fulfillment.”

“So, you would deny your evil? What is it that you are asking of me?”

Laughter. Piercing, ringing laughter like the hammer on hot metal.

“If evil is what they call me, evil is what I am. I am not ashamed of it. Neither should you be, if the day might come where they call you the same. Because, bright one, I want you by my side. You would be an asset to me, and you could forge as many blades as your being desires. But I see our meeting as a fractal of a greater design. For, just as the Imperishable Flame is the core of Eä, I wish for you to be the Fire in the center of my world, and I will grant you the means to feed your ambitions, and the entire breadth of my love, just as Aulё never offered to you, but you have so insistently thirsted for. If the time comes where you feel that this company stifles you, just as it seemed to me, I will wait for you eagerly, to teach and cherish you.”

All this Melkor said, and Mairon listened intently, feeling an unbidden rush of elation at all these promises. Melkor was said to be a liar as well, but this Mairon did not speak of, because in the wake of what he had heard, he could not see Melkor as anything but genuine. So much sense it all made, fitting into the pieces of what he already found out for himself, like gears in a clock. There was an internal disturbance too, when Mairon realized just how carefully he had been watched, but scolding Melkor for it seem like a moot point.

“And how would I find you, if you are not welcome here? Would you give me the secret of where you have made your fortress, despite lacking trust?”

“If you can find the darkest place in Almaren, where the light of the lamps does not reach, and submerge yourself in the shadow, then I will come to you, and I will take you, and you will see Utumno with your own eyes.”

“And should I choose not to come to you?”

Melkor’s voice did not reply. Mairon waited in the dark for a long moment, contemplating, and waiting on more words that did not come. Eventually, he lit the fire of the forge once again, and returned to work as usual, acting unchanged but feeling a stirring in his center.


	3. III. Necessity

The mind of Mairon was thoroughly occupied for a time, as he contemplated the wisdom of Melkor. Aulё noted the change in his temperament, but said nothing, equating his behavior to grief at the loss of his beloved Illuin blade. There was nothing he could say to his apprentice to ease his worries, because he had no regrets in his actions. The fact that Mairon was still patiently attending to the requests of his fellow Maiar was sign enough to him that he was well.

But the comings and goings of the hunter Oromё revealed something new in Mairon. Mairon enjoyed sitting in the shade of the great dwelling that housed the Valar and their Maiar subjects, observing with his talented, complicated gaze. Hence he saw Oromё astride Nahar, a bloodied monster corse hung over the horse’s back, a quiver of arrows on Oromё’s back. Mairon watched him untie the limp body, and smile in the direction of Tulkas, sharing the sight of his trophy. A question forming on Mairon’s lips, he left his place in the shade to pose it to Oromё.

“If I might trouble you for a moment, my lord, I come to you with an observation and a philosophical musing.” Mairon said, with a short bow.

“Never could you trouble me, Mairon. I am honored to see you approach.” Oromё replied patiently, a perfect guise over the aggression that dwelt inside him.

“What is the purpose of a bow and a spear, if not violence?” With this question, Oromё’s expression faltered as he first considered Mairon’s question, then began to suspect him of attempting to instigate disquiet.

“Why ask? Is it wrong to hunt monsters? If that is your implication, I am not to hear it. What kind of pacifist are you that you would shield the evil that defiles our Arda, just to prevent blood spilled in vain.” Oromё answered gruffly, beginning to turn from Mairon.

“Nay, you misunderstand. I ask after a greater purpose. What are a bow and spear if not tools? All tools speak to a purpose. I am merely curious to your perspective.” Mairon placated Oromё with a placid smile, waiting as the Vala retook to the question with renewed interest.

“They are tools for protection. For hunting what is necessary.”

“I see. Pardon me, but I am thinking of the Firstborn when I say, how does one obtain the wisdom to understand this necessity? For a time may come when blood is spilled in vain, as you say, because one deemed that it was necessary, when from a superior point of view, that choice may have been incorrect. Who dictates the borders between violence and protection? Does anyone know with infallible certainty?”

“What do the words of your snaketongue matter when the Children are meant to be shielded from conflict among themselves? It is exactly this we are intending to prevent from the very beginning. Leave me, Mairon. I tire of your riddles and your discourse.”

Within a few hours, Aulё caught word of Mairon’s conversation with Oromё and scolded him once again. Sensing the tension between them growing taught, Mairon made up his mind at long last.


	4. IV. Utumno

Mairon’s decision to leave was threefold. First was his overwhelming sense that he no longer belonged among the other Maiar. It was as if he breached a barrier that he could not see until it was too late. Aulё was careful with his words around Mairon now, unsure if praise was really wise, when it brought him to such reckless heights of ambition. Second was the loneliness that this isolation was suffusing him with. It was a terrible plight to be full of ideas and the desire to share them, but to be lacking a captive audience, or of any sort of critique. Third was the burning curiosity that had begun as a diminutive spark, but had raged out of control into an internal forest fire. Mairon’s conversation with Oromё had been enough to put all this in perspective, and so he spent some time, contemplating where to find the darkest place in Almaren.

Using the lightless forge as a basis, he tested many places, squeezing himself into cabinets and furniture and simply waiting, for spans of time up to six hours before giving up, body sore and pride damaged. Mairon also attempted to contact Melkor again, whispering his name aloud, but never receiving any affirmation. He began to wonder at times if Melkor’s coming to him had only been a dream—a product of a feverishly distraught mind, but could not fathom why he would dream of Melkor to begin with.

The absolute darkest place in Almaren came to Mairon with a certain sense of finality of the path he was venturing. A stone well had been constructed in the shadow of the estate of the Valar. Mairon had drawn water from it several times in the past, to fill the slack tub in the forge. He was unsure how deeply it delved into the ground, only that a falling pebble did not make any audible sound to him, when dropped over the edge. Spending long moments contemplating the darkness drew up the irony of how much hesitation he felt, now that the means of his escape was at hand. Whether to prepare or to simply fall in was a question he posed to himself as well. There was also the possibility that Melkor was deceiving him after all, and leading him to a certain doom. He could not die by drowning, but there was a very real threat of becoming a prisoner of the well.

In the end, all Mairon brought with him was his forge hammer. It was a symbol of comfort to him, and would be of use, and that was all that mattered. He bided his time, waiting for an hour when all prying eyes were otherwise occupied. Then he sat on the meticulously constructed perimeter, and fell into the void with closed eyes.

The horrible, drawn-out moment of freefall lasted for both longer and shorter than Mairon expected. When his body finally hit water, he opened his eyes and beheld a lack of light, like a great vat of ink soaking him in defiling shadow. The inability to breathe or to move, or to scream set his mind into a wild panic. And then he felt two arms, corporeal and steady, wrap around his torso and draw him downward. Defying logic, his head breached the water’s surface, and before him he beheld a great hall of obsidian, lit with dim green unflame. His body was drawn out of a scrying pool elevated on a dais in the hall’s ambulatory. Mairon was limp in the arms of Melkor, who laughed at the sight of his drenched form.

“You certainly took your time, didn’t you, bright one? But I had no doubt that you would come. And so you did, with such dramatics. You know how to impress, don’t you?” His voice in person still had the effect of coming from some distant dimension, which was something Mairon hadn’t expected. He turned, his frame shaking and shivering, chest burning from the lack of breath he had suffered. Melkor’s physical form was taller than he was, and had a sense of blurring and crumbling around the edges, like he was comprised solely of dust and smoke, but he was still as firm to the touch as any other being. Most striking were his eyes—like the concept of absolute lack of light made real. The most intense, and the most suffocating darkness, such that the space in front of the gaze of Melkor was saturated with gloom. And Mairon was immediately lost to it, wanting to look away, but finding himself without the will to.

“My lord…” He said reverently, choking through lungfulls of well water. “My intent wasn’t to impress. It was the only option at hand.”

“I’m aware. But that was part of my assessment, to ascertain your dedication to our imminent union. I won’t ignore a task well done. But now, I should rather like to see you no longer carrying the stain of that place. My servants will see it done.” Melkor withdrew his arms, and Mairon crumbled to the floor to retain body heat. Melkor himself had a strange, distinctive lack of temperature. Two figures with black garments and covered faces retrieved Mairon from the floor, and took him from the hall.


	5. V. One

By Melkor’s command was Mairon clothed and fed, and generally looked after. To Mairon, this treatment was befitting of royalty, and he could not see how he so easily earned this level of allegiance from the faceless beings that comprised the staff of the stronghold of Utumno. He had assumed he would be one of these many servants, and work to earn consideration as an apprentice of Melkor. The Dark Lord didn’t seem to have any true apprentices, however. Mairon of course heard of the brief stint of Osse as apprentice, regarding the whole tale with some disdain, that he would trade knowledge and opportunity for a lover. Yet, he could not be too biased, seeing similar qualities in himself, and holding on to a hope that he would come to understand the “entire breadth of love” that Melkor had mentioned to him before.

For many spans, however, he did not see his lord. Instead, he was visited by an unending parade of tutors, who informed Mairon on many necessary subjects. There was combat, foremost, which Mairon had never experienced in his lifetime. He was handed many instruments of battle, and instructed in their effective use, sparring until his body was covered in stinging wounds. At the very least, there was no injury that Mairon mortally feared. At first the pain was a frightening enough deterrent, but as time passed, he cared less and less what his body felt. A balancing factor to these practices was his lessons in strategy and logistics of larger scale combat. His teachers were not masters of these subjects by any means, but rather posed questions to Mairon and let his mind attune to thinking along these lines. In this, he was naturally talented—a discovery that heartened him and made him feel that Melkor had not made a mistake in selecting him from his brethren. Besides this, there were lessons in dark magics, and a language Melkor had crafted himself in order to encrypt goings on of Utumno from the Valar. Black Speech, it was called, and the words falling from Mairon’s lips felt like learning how to breathe poison and bile.

A part of him still shied away from this feeling, but he willed himself to press on. To give shape to his desire to see Melkor again and hear that his progress was admirable. He hadn’t even seen Mairon’s physical transformation from youthful being with austere, tight braids, simple clothing, and soot-smudged face, to a poised yet venomous courtier, recognizable by the golden scarlet curtain of his now freed hair. Mairon could take pride in how beautifully he had metamorphized, but thirsted still after praise.

After a time, Melkor began to join Mairon for supper on occasion. He would sit at the far end of the table and ask him formally how he felt his lessons were progressing. Mairon did not know whether to speak highly of himself or to be humble, but he always replied in the Black Speech to signal his dedication to full assimilation. And Melkor would hardly reply, just indicate that he was listening, and say no more. This frustrated Mairon endlessly. He wished he had the leave to follow Melkor where ever he went afterward, and speak to him more intimately. This treatment gifted him with nothing but confusion, and a hollow feeling physically manifesting inside of him.

On one instance, after being roused from sleep by the faceless servant who had been assigned to him as a personal chaperon, Mairon couldn’t help but articulate his tension.

“Do you know our lord’s intentions with me? I feel that it was perhaps never made clear, and now I suffer for it. Does he not wish to waste his time with me?” Mairon felt that it was not becoming of him to complain, but keeping it contained was too much of a task, after spans and spans of this same routine, and being able to count the number of times he had conversed with Melkor on one hand.

“Our lord is observing you, to see if you are befitting to be marked as his equal. Our lord sees the coupling of Manwё and Varda, of Aulё and Yavanna, of Oromё and Vana, and others, and wishes the same for himself. For that you are being tested, put through your paces, because our lord would not settle for lesser. But you must not be influenced by that which has not been earned as of yet.” The servant answered plainly. The voices of these beings had the same echo of Melkor’s voice. Mairon wondered after what sort of construct they must have been. They were not Maiar, nor any other being Mairon was familiar with. They seemed to have no sort of emotion either, like shadow made sentient. He had slayed several during spars, at first on accident, then purposefully to see if it would cause any reaction in the others. It did not.

“I see. Is it not a little strange that he did not select a female-expressing Maia for this role?” The question felt a bit ridiculous, but Mairon wondered it anyway.

“Our lord was not concerned with the difference, only the latent potential of the individual.” That was logical. It fit in well with what Mairon knew of Melkor. Later at supper, he ambushed him with his newly clarified insight.

“So, I am your husband-to-be.” Mairon said, before he had even been addressed. It was bold of him to speak out of turn, but if they were truly meant to be equals, it wouldn’t matter. That is what he assumed.

“I would have liked to formally propose at the correct opportunity, bright one. But you are not wholly incorrect. You sound displeased. Is this not suitable for you?” Melkor slightly raised his dark gaze from the plate in front of him. Even with some distance between them, Mairon could feel a chill down his spine. Perhaps it was his fault for not understanding this from the beginning. Yet, the idea pleased him so thoroughly. None of the other Valar would consider a Maia as a spouse, but here he was. Mairon rose from his place at the table, crossing the room in confident strides to kneel before Melkor. He took his hand, kissing the back of it respectfully. The heat of his touch sent a tremor through the great being—slight as breath on the surface of smooth, black water.

“It would be my honor and delight, my lord.”

Melkor was very still, then he stood as well, and pulled Mairon from the floor, to him, crushing the length of his form in an embrace, and a hard kiss to his full lips.

“Prove to me you are my equal in cunning and might, and we will be as one.”


End file.
